


How Do You Sleep At Night?

by lynch



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Flashbacks, M/M, Mentions of Rape, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 01:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1570931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynch/pseuds/lynch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"How do you sleep at night?" That's a question he's been asked quite a lot. And honestly, he doesn't know what to say to that, except for, "Knowing that I'll have breakfast in the morning." Mickey Milkovich has learned a couple of things from the South Side. One of them is how not to lose sleep over the things he's done or have nightmares about it. So when Mickey sleeps, there's not much that can jolt him awake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Do You Sleep At Night?

"How do you sleep at night?" That's a question he's been asked quite a lot. And honestly, he doesn't know what to say to that, except for, "Knowing that I'll have breakfast in the morning." Mickey Milkovich has learned a couple of things from the South Side. One of them is how not to lose sleep over the things he's done or have nightmares about them. So when Mickey sleeps, there's not much that can jolt him awake.

Something hits Ian in the knee and he wakes up, ready to tell Carl to fuck off and go harass somebody else. Only, when he opens his eyes, he notices that it's dark and that he's the only person in the whole house who's actually awake. It takes him a while to realize that he's in Fiona's room and that Carl wasn't the one who hit him, but Mickey, who's sleeping next to him.

Usually, when Mickey slept, he had one hand under his pillow and the other one clutching Ian's wrist. This night, however, Mickey's hands are fists that he keeps over his head, as if he's shielding himself against a crushing blow. He's squirming, his legs trying to kick off some invisible threat and the horrified expression on his face tells Ian that Mickey's having an ugly nightmare. He asks himself if there's anything in this world that can scare Mickey, let alone give him nightmares.

"Leave him alone, you fucking-" Mickey mutters between his clenched jaws. His face is twisted with agony - tightly shut eyelids and bared teeth that threaten to bite. Then, Mickey starts whispering, "No, no, no, no.... No." He continues to chant that one word that sounds so simple, yet it takes him so much effort to utter it.

Mickey looks like he'll either _wake up_ or _die_ , so Ian grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him out of his nightmare. "Mick, wake up," Ian tries to make his voice as soft as he can. He pulls at his wrists, but Mickey's too adamant about keeping them on each side of his head. "Mickey, wake up! Come on, it's just a dream."

When Mickey opens his eyes, they're full of tears. He looks at Ian with distrust and an open mouth. For the next few moments, they stare at each other in complete silence, save for Mickey's labored heaving. Then, he finally takes in the surroundings and his head rolls back with relief. He realizes that he's not in that dream anymore. Slowly, he frees his hands from Ian's and he presses them against his eyes, as if he's forcing the tears back where they came from instead of acknowledging them and just wiping them away.

Ian doesn't know what to do. "Are you okay?" It's the first time in his entire life that he's ever seen Mickey so scared. It's worse than that the two times he got shot, or when he had Svetlana in his lap at his father's gunpoint.

Mickey doesn't respond and Ian doesn't push him. Instead, he leans with his back against the wall and pulls Mickey closer. A stifled sob escapes Mickey as he drags his head to Ian's lap and buries his nose in his pajamas, still shaking a bit. He knows it was just a dream, but whatever he saw terrified him so much that the sole thought of it breaks him down.

"You can tell me," Ian says and starts rubbing his back. He bites his lip and hesitates, before he asks, "Was it Terry?" Because he's pretty sure it was Terry. He was the source of Mickey's problems almost all of the time.

Mickey nods into his leg. 

Once, Mickey used to have this deeply ingrained fear of Terry. It was irrational and maybe stupid, because Mickey was at least 90% positive that he could beat the shit out of him in a fair fight. But he still felt it, that sour taste in his mouth and fist in his stomach that made him a cautious animal around Terry, always tiptoeing like a cat around him, taking care of how he talked to him and acted around him. He was so used to feeling it that it was almost his default state of mind. Even now, when Mickey doesn't care that much about Terry, he still gets jumpy when someone mentions his name. Then he remembers what happened that night at the Alibi, he calms down and gives Ian a look of appreciation. 

"He can't hurt you again," Ian's voice turns forceful. What he means to say is, "I won't let him." Only Ian knows how much he hates Terry, for doing what he did to Mandy and Mickey, and for being a shitty human being in general. "He won't." 

But that doesn't calm Mickey down so much as it upsets him even more. "Not me," he tells Ian. And the rest is implied.

Of course, it wasn't him. It was Ian that Mickey dreamed about. Until recently, Mickey's biggest and ugliest fear was his father. Ian recalls what Mickey's face looked like when Terry started throwing merciless punches at him and when he forced Svetlana on him, and he realizes that the only time he's ever seen Mickey look more broken and lost was that night at the Alibi, when Ian went for the door. Mickey couldn't bear to watch him leave again.

So now, Mickey's biggest and ugliest fear is losing Ian.

Ian doesn't know what Terry could have done to him in that dream that would frighten Mickey so much, but he knows that now, there are a lot of things in this world that can scare Mickey, even more things that can give him nightmares. He realizes, almost all of those things have something to do with Ian.

He feels the dampness on his pajamas. "It's okay," he tells Mickey, brushing his hair back. "I'm here now."

**Author's Note:**

> Listen to How by The Neighbourhood while reading this. I hope you cry a lot :)


End file.
